Shopping Online For ‘Love’

Why be lonely on the day designed to express love when you can just as easily click onto your phone, swipe right and ﬁnd someone you can share this glorious day ﬁlled with ﬂowers and chocolates? With Valentine’s Day approaching, single people are constantly being reminded that they do not have that special someone. They are forever alone and the only way to avoid loneliness is through social media and dating apps. How else will you meet the right person on time for V-Day? The hype built around V-Day is has become so extreme that it can make people actually feel sad and lonely. On a normal day, you might not really care about all those loved up couples in your face. It’s cute seeing people so happy. You might roll your eyes and pretend to ignore the red hearts in the windows of all shops but on this day, it can hit a nerve for some.

Everyone is basically pointing out that you are alone in this world and that you do not have that special someone everyone else seems to have found. So, what is the best way to ﬁnd ‘love’? Dating apps! When referring to dating apps the term ‘online shopping’ comes to mind. Finding the right person for you can be compared to shopping online for a product you desire. See a beautiful dress you know will look good on you? Add it to your cart. Found an amazing pair of football boots that will really make all the other players on your team jealous? Add it to your cart. Need someone to spend V-Day with so you won’t be alone and will get all the chocolates you desire? Swipe right on Tinder. Dating has become based on physical appearances. Yes, it is scientiﬁcally proven that we are attracted to someone based on their looks, that is how we strike a conversation with someone that catches our eye.

But dating apps take physical appearances to the next level. The whole idea of swiping left for ‘no’ and swiping right for ‘yes’ has become based on what that exact person looks like. He/she has a big nose? Swipe left. He/she is too scrawny? Swipe left. He/she is just not pretty enough? Swipe left. See the pattern yet? American ﬁlms have built a whole empire around ‘love’ and ﬁnding ‘the one’. It looks so easy on camera but reality makes it difﬁcult to ﬁnd someone you know you can like, if not tolerate.

Shopping online for ‘love’ seems like the easiest and fastest option to ﬁnd that someone and some of the best relationships have started through dating apps, but just because V-Day is a day for couples to go overboard on their love for one another does not mean that you need ﬁnd that someone right now. And if you are feeling lonely, why not share this day with your friends? They are the people you spend most of your time with, you know you like hanging out with them and you also know that they are just the right people to make you feel less alone.